The TransferTravel.com Founding Story

In 2014 a relationship break-up left founder, Simon, with a broken heart and a romantic pre-booked holiday to Dubai worth thousands of pounds that he no longer wanted.

Stuck with both non-refundable flight tickets and a hotel reservation he didn’t need, he discovered that even though a refund couldn't be made, a change of name on the tickets could. With nothing more than a Facebook status to try and sell his holiday, it was clear there was a gap in the market to be filled. From then it was down to Simon to create the first online marketplace dedicated to transferrable travel.

Simon wasn't alone. In 2012 the BBC reported that over £10 billion is wasted every year on unused and pre-paid hotel rooms and further £7 billion on unused seats on flights. Forbes even reported that an estimated 220,000 hotel rooms are pre-paid and never used in the US alone, despite most of them being transferable to someone else.

In June 2016 TransferTravel.com went live. As awareness and demand grew a small team formed and developers were hired to create and design an online platform. More staff, along with brand ambassadors, joined the team in October 2016 to expose the brand globally.

By accommodating for all types of travel bookings including flights, hotel reservations, villas, cruises and train tickets, TransferTravel.com brings transferable travel to the masses, providing a simple, compassionate solution to a problem most people don’t know is solve-able.

With customers already in the US and UK, JumpFlight was acquired to secure a place in the European market. With people registering in the thousands, a payment gateway was implemented to enable involvement in the whole transaction and validate each booking.

In 2017 a series A 1 million pound funding was completed. TransferTravel.com became focused on growing key global partnerships and investing in staff in both the UK and US. By the end of 2017 TransferTravel.com had the enormous honour of being shortlisted for Travolutions Startup of The Year award and celebrated in London at the prestigious awards ceremony.

Hitting the ground running, in 2018 a new Chief Commercial Officer was hired, along with a Partnerships Manager in London. As key commercial relationships expanded, so did the team and offices. Customer Engagement Moderators were brought in to approve listings, respond to customer queries and answer live chats. The marketing team grew with a new Marketing Manager, Marketing Outreach Executives and a Content Writer. 2018 also saw the start of TransferTravel.com’s Chief Strategy Officer who brought extensive industry knowledge and helped to spearhead the scaling and development of a concrete growth strategy.

In June 2018, TranserTravel.com revealed its renewed branding and launched their revamped custom-built platform. Working closely with a leading design and development agency, they were able to produce a more intuitive website for simplified listing and easy browsing, complete with a personalised dashboard, advanced purchasing options, watch lists, and an integrated messaging system.

The feedback was incredible. Not only were TransferTravel.com revolutionizing the travel industry, offering a bespoke platform for people to buy heavily discounted travel plans, they were also helping solve a true consumer problem. Giving back control - and some cash - to those who find themselves in the unfortunate situation of no longer being able to use their travel plans.

Today, TransferTravel.com is home to over 100,000 international users registered to buy or sell unwanted travel and are in the process of developing a mobile app for both Android and Apple fans. The company is more energized than ever to educate consumers and give those with travel bookings they can no longer use, a streamlined and simple solution to recoup the costs of unwanted and non-refundable travel.

So far all of these milestones have been paramount to the success of TransferTravel.com and every step helps propel their journey to achieve their ambitious plans for the future.

“It’s an exciting time for the company and we can’t wait to progress the brand even further,” said Powell, founder and CEO.

Topics

travel

Posted 17 July 2018

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